PaTS-Wheel: A Passively-Transformable Single-Part Wheel for Mobile Robot Navigation
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- čas přidán 25. 04. 2024
- T. Godden*, B. W. Mulvey*, E. Redgrave and T. Nanayakkara, “PaTS-Wheel: A Passively-Transformable Single-Part Wheel for Mobile Robot Navigation on Unstructured Terrain,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2024.
Link to IEEE RA-L paper: ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/...
Link to paper preprint: drive.google.com/file/d/1sfFv...
Link to STEP/STL files: drive.google.com/drive/folder...
Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/LRA.2024.3389828
Abstract:
Most mobile robots use wheels that perform well on even and structured ground, like in factories and warehouses. However, they face challenges traversing unstructured terrain such as stepped obstacles. This paper presents the design and testing of the PaTS-Wheel: a Passively-Transformable Single-part Wheel that can transform to render hooks when presented with obstacles. The passive rendering of this useful morphological feature is guided purely by the geometry of the obstacle. The energy consumption and vibrational profile of the PaTS-Wheel on flat ground is comparable to a standard wheel of the same size. In addition, our novel wheel design was tested traversing different terrains with stepped obstacles of incremental heights. The PaTS-Wheel achieved 100% success rate at traversing stepped obstacles with heights ≈70% its diameter, higher than the results obtained for an equivalent wheel (≈25% its diameter) and an equivalent wheg (≈61% its diameter). This achieves the design objectives of combining the energy efficiency and ride smoothness of wheels with the obstacle traversal capabilities of legged robots, all without requiring any sensors, actuators, or controllers. - Věda a technologie
They did it. They reinvented the wheel.
@@rgw5991 Living rent free in your head
@@rgw5991 More likely Ukraine will, Russia is still only using heavy robots with tracks (specifically on the ground, obviously), this wheel is useless to their drone doctrine. I don't think it's very useful to Ukraine either though, they mostly use robots on flat roads and in fields, so they might not bother either. Light robots are a much better tool for urban search and rescue, than fighting a war.
@@micaheiber1419 🇷🇺🪆💪❤
@@rgw5991 im sure its already being used
Firestone moment
When reinventing the wheel is actually a pretty good idea
Make shit more complex when you give normal things money to get a bit more versatile stat while lowering durability stat
Is it? Now do the test again with good rubber on the normal wheel
"Humvee Climbing Vertical Wall"
The U.S. military engineers solved this issue a long time ago. The solution is called "soft tyres and a f*ton of ground clearance".
But you know, post a video vaguely scientific on CZcams and suddenly people think it's the new sliced bread.
@@dragbag1616pretty sure they used the same rubber on all wheels so improving the rubber on all, the wheels shouldn’t make a comparative difference
New meta just dropped, the phrase is now "Reinventing the Wheg"
I freaking love when someone solves such a problem so elegantly
The tear&wear though.
@@johnacetable7201 yeah that is a compromise. the thing is that this is another new option. that doesn't mean it is the best option. it can easily be a bad option. however it is a cool piece of tech and a really cool idea. maybe it is not applicable only professionals in the field can answer that. i only do computer and programming in a professional level
100%
A problem that been solved better and more elegantly before... soft rubber tyres can climb vertical walls better. KISS. Keep It Stupid Simple. "Humvee Climbs Vertical Wall"
@@dragbag1616 this could still have use in certain applications. Its not THE best wheel, just like an offroad tire and a racing tire has its pros and cons, this wheel and other designs has its pros and cons.
This is exceptional work. Novel, low complexity and useful.
The only question now is what the longevity of a wheel like this is like.
@@ThePursuitWOD Id guess about 5 revolutions
You clearly have no idea of the structural properties of even simple single-material design,,,polypropylene hinges, for example, in ultra-cheap consumer products, last thousands of cycles, and, in an application like this, use of two-shot molding allows better material choices for each part...but, hey...
@@lohikarhu734 you arent any smarter shut up
@@ThePursuitWOD I'm guessing if that becomes a problem, you stop printing it out of one lump of plastic and actually use hinges and springs.
I remember watching a video from Veritasium about compliant mechanisms. It's cool to see another practical application of such an interesting concept.
Compliant mechanisms? Say more
@@Philosophaster google it
I watched it too a long time ago
Non compliant mechanisms are put into a special prison
@@turolretar ah yes that checks out 💯
I'm wondering about longevity, as it seems that when climbing the weight of the robot goes to flexture. On larger size these could be rods and bearings effectively eliminating flexture stress.
Yes longevity is the next focus. We are thinking of spring steel and vulcanized rubber in the next iteration for heavier loads.
@@thrishantha Well if the wheels could be made out of a higher grade filament. That or another version that gives it a more optimal durability trade off. Then it would be perfect in colony situations. Where you would want as many things as possible to be made from the least amount of specialized resources.
Esp if the material can be recycled a large amount of times too. Meaning it's just so much simpler to replace the wheel that wears out and use the material to make more filament. Reducing the strain on the colony.
It couldn't work in the modern economic model of extreme disposability with NO reusability/recyclability. A colony on another planet can't make use of near slave labor on cheap low quality materials to flood a 'market'. In this case the source of wheels. Can't just ship across a planet and get it rendered down for nothing and resold for massive profits. It needs to be self contained and long enough lasting to make it work the effort and energy put into making and setting it up.
For robots Designed for long term work would have a much bigger budget so you could easily use hinges or bars and bearings to make this much more robust
@@HidForHGThat’s a really interesting point. Longevity is a lot less relevant when it requires a complex manufacturing process that isn’t readily available. Better to have wheels that need to be reprinted every few weeks than ones that last a year, but need replacements shipped 140 million miles from earth anytime they break.
Flexture stress is one thing, but I cannot help but notice that as soon as wheel rotates to a point past the claw, the claw quickly retracts and sends the whole wheel crashing down on itself.
You'd think everything obvious has been invented and then this comes along. Bravo!
Absolutely awesome work, and a passive solution too!
yo Angus! I'm glad to see you still watch and comment on videos from smaller uploaders like this! Gotta stay current, and this invention's definitely one of the cooler ones I've seen recently. 😁
This is really cool! Perhaps the first time we've seen the wheel be reinvented in a productive manner.
You forgot about the invention Omni Wheels
They allow for travel in multiple directions with fewer points of rotatinal inputs then it would otherwise take
Other things: spokes, metal tires, rubber tires. All have gone on to reinvent/improve the wheel in some way. And thats not even a full list of stuff.
Don't forget the new wire net wheels made by NASA, those could prove to be excellent on rovers
@@dr.cheeze5382 I did forget them - my bad!
Itll be cool to see what challenges these designs face and how engineers can adress them
I’d consider tank treads to be replacements for wheels but that could be controversial
I will never stop loving single part solutions. Would love to see other terrains, sand, mud, snow, ice... and see how far all of it can go. Because this technology is exactly the type of thing that can be sold to NASA, for a TON.
whatever money they make is not really my problem, but if this tech could improve space exploration it would be MASSIVE, but rovers wheels already have a similar system and higher durability so i dont really know about it
I love it, BUUUUT having competed in many a robotics competition you will HAVE TO pack spare wheels. And whatever number you come up with, double it just in case.
Exactly, the design is great, but this probably sacrifices so much durability. Wouldn't be surprised if it had less than half the cycles to failure of the other wheg.
This was what I thought the moment I saw flexible material joints. No matter how good a design is using living hinges, every cycle on it adds stress, and it WILL fail eventually.
The wheel being a single part also means that while simple to manufacture, as soon as ANY part of it breaks, the whole wheel has to be scrapped because there's no way to repair it.
@@Lunageldia Just print a new one :) But for applications where long term durability is a concern, I guess the same idea can be implemented with hinges and springs
Do you mean VEX or FRC
@@LunageldiaSo make the living hinges out of a material that's designed to survive unlimited flexures like nitinol.
I love when a passive mechanism outperforms an electronic one. Using the contact pressure itself to extend the claw is inspired, keep it up!
Not only a clever design, but a clear and concise presentation that conveys how it works and why it's useful. Well done!
I've always thought that compliant mechanisms were cool, but never seen any good real uses of them, at least until this video. That is a super cool wheel design you guys have come up!
Curious about cycles to failure
Didn't nasa make titanium joints for their telescope or something
@@dilutioncreation1317probably not a lot with the basic print-in-place design, but scale it up a bit and use springs and hinges and it'd last quite a ling time with a little grease
If done in a molded form, in the polypropylene used in 'living hinges', or a two-shot process, with fkexures and treads selected from appropriate materials, could quite robust, and, as well, easily replaced, possibly designed to be repaired ...
I mean, they are used in space exploration. Isn't that a good real use?
Great 😑 now i need to search for my roomba on all floors of a house…. Great design!
Do you have a monster Roomba with huge side mounted wheels?
Not sure how practical this would be in uneven terrain, but this would be terrific for anyone in a wheelchair that had to deal with stairs.
Assuming there was also an inbuilt system in the wheel for creating higher torque (to lift the device up the stair) with something like an onboard gear box of sufficient load capabilities, that sounds like a great idea, as it could be purely mechanical.
I would love to see a video of all the designs and trials leading up to this! Very graceful design. Bravo. Maybe some crazy CZcamsr could put a big set on a 4x4 truck and climb things!
"Humvee Climbing Vertical Wall"
Let's tag all the creators we know. I would love to see @colinfurze have a go at it!
Practically speaking this would not be a great wheel for offroading. Just imagine one of those tiny delicate joints breaking. Now you need to replace the entire wheel in the field
@@dragbag1616nah for that you need the bad piggies wheels
i bet it would be hard to make these strong enough to carry a load of 2.5 tons or even more
This is a fantastic design, and it looks cool. Also, your presentation is fantastic. The images, video, and description are clear and easy to follow. Congratulations on such a cool project and I hope it makes you absolutely loaded in the future.
for stability in climbing, perhaps engineering both wheels to be able to move back to a same checkpoint on their rotation would allow them to present the claws at the same time for steps, whilst still being able to tackle unequal obstacles.
I imagine this would be really easy to implement with some kind of rotation encoder honestly, tricky part might be stopping errant movement from wheel sliding though
Phenomenal. What a novel concept! And so simply implemented. This is a masterpiece of design and engineering.
Imagine scaling this up to a full size airless rubber tires for rovers. Seems kinda cool
Quite similar to the wire net wheels NASA is developing. But this design is definitely much more reasonable to imagine in a factory setting than another planet
Biggest issue with using this on a rover is debris. If a rock or sand gets caught in those compliant mechanisms on earth, you can just clean it out. On mars, if turning the wheel very slowly doesn't fix it, it's there for good.
I love when someone solves a problem that I had no idea existed 😅
This is amazing. Geniuses over here. I'd love to see your wheel run through these same tests but with small river stone in place of the turf.
Man that “wheg” looks kinda OG 🥶
kinda buddhist, right?
I don't know why youtube recommended me this but this is really hype and creative!
Excellent. Now let's make a lot of comments to boost the algorithm. Your design deserves it
I work with AMRs and the stuff in this video is out of this world to me.
Wow, very impressive. I love watching videos about compliant mechanisms, because even though a functionally similar part could be made using traditional joints and pivots, it would be prohibitively expensive, difficult, and/or fragile. 3d printing and compliant mechanisms solve all of those problems.
This is such an elegant solution 👌
Oh dang, you guys actually reinvented the wheel in a better way.
Fantastic design guys! Truly fantastic!
Reinventing the wheel. Bravo!
Interesting. nice work
Very elegant, clever engineering using compliant mechanisms, however the big question here is durability. How long can a 3d printed compliant mechanism really last?
You are relying on those tiny compliant joints to literally do the heavy lifting.
Yes longevity is the next focus. We are thinking of spring steel and vulcanized rubber in the next iteration for heavier loads.
For many applications, hours of life per set of wheels is acceptable.
This is very cool, I love how it can be easily 3D printed as a single part.
I'm fascinated with compliant mechanisms. This is awesome!
Absolutely genius. You asked a question it seems no one else did, "what if the wheel shape wasn't static?"
I think some of the designs shown at 0:49 are dynamic, but the problem is that those ones aren't passive.
Wheels on cars are not static though they are elastic and moves quite alot
Many, many, many, people asked that. They came up with a different solution.
Jesus take the ...uh...
wheg
This is absolutely brilliant!
Awesome actual real world usable flexure! I’m super impressed!
i do recall battlebots now has a ledge in the arena, i wonder if this could be used to give a combat bot an advantage in traversing
Likely, but then the concern would be the strength of the wheels, as they'd be easier for an opponent to disable, also of course anything with enough ground clearance would be an easy target for a flipper
Not that it's a bad idea ofc, it's just execution would be difficult, maybe making only the rear wheels like this, with the system seemingly backwards, so it can climb an obstacle backwards while facing the opponent to keep itself safe?
The "Wheg" shape reminds me of a famous painter from Austria.
yep
Ls going to the left is for the silly Austrian guy. Ls to the right is the Buddhist symbol of good luck
@@heimskr2881 didn't ask
@aintdrian yikes
Hello how r u
Nice! This can easily be ‘upgraded’ to flexures from (spring) steel for much heavier vehicles. Lovely solution!
Edit: just subbed to your channel… with content like this you deserve many more than 335 subs :-) Love to see where you all take this (seems to be a team effort)
I had this exact problem in mind quite a few times without ever reaching an elegant solution
this is so cool!
Interesting, but absolutely not for "unstructured environments". platforms, stairs etc are most definitely structured obstacles. If this were to drive over a couple of twigs, or some similar thin obstacle a bit off the ground, it would clasp around it like a carabiner.
This is so cool! Could we get an stl to play with it?
Just take a screenshot and model it the from the profile lol
@@Dindonmasker modeling compliant mechanisms is quite tricky, i could do it but it would take quite a few tries to dial the thicknes of the joints.
Excellent job! Simple idea, beautiful execution.
This is one of the coolest uses of compliant mechanisms I've seen yet. Great job to you and your team
This wheel can bear little load and has a lot of weak fins that can break off.
I remember there's a triangle shaped water jug stairs carrier wheel rack that can carry huge water bottles up the stairs, it's very proven and robust.
Link?
True, but for low weight load applications this seems like a godsend IMO.
Incredible work! The wheel has been reinvented
Incredible. I am absolutely flabbergasted by this simple yet eficient design.
Most excellent! Great engineering!
Very very good all around.
Very cool, please continue your work
Bravo ! Great idea,great work!🌞
excelent pitch and demonstrations! well done
I don't know why CZcams recommended this to me but. Well, I clicked so, I guess the algorithm knew what it was doing. Nice video, I like how concise it is.
Very interesting concept! Nice work!
dude sick yall are inventing
that's dope
Neat! Simple yet efficient design. Congrats!
Bloody brilliant work!
Fantastic work!
Truly a engineering marvel. So simple yet so effective
Brilliant work, thanks for sharing.
I remember back in the 80's I had this toy truck called "The Animal" that had claws that popped out of the wheels to help it climb over stuff. Loved that thing.
That is fantastic engineering!
There is something about getting a random engineering video on my CZcams feed that makes me so happy. I just think it’s so cool that even though humans have been around for so long, and to my every day life it seems as if we have stopped developing, cool things are still happening in the background.
Genius! What a brilliant design. Very cool. 👍
this is crazy! well done guys
Holy cow an actual good 'reinventing the wheel' now that is amazing
Excellent idea!
Good Luck with the project!!
fantastic, thank you for sharing. i would've never thought of that, but it makes perfect sense in 2min!
a beautifully elegant presentation on a beautifully elegant reinvention of the wheel
Such a beautiful and elegant solution to this problem. Great to see.
Brilliant 😮this should be near the top of my feed.
super cool, i hope more people see this!
wow fantastic use of compliant mechanisms!! definitely something to integrate
Outstanding! Congratulations 😊
Love new techs like this. Additive manufacturing opens up so many avenues for innovation.
Ive always loved compliant mechanisms, this is just genius!
This is brilliant!
Yooooooo the basic design looks like one of those switches that people 3d print, thats so ingenious and crazy
Simple and elegant!
Just finished a college course on compliant mechanisms, this is awesome!
This is genius! Amazing work my boys.
This is awesome!!!
Interesting content. Thank you for posting.
This is super nice design! good work!
This is fraking awesome! ... so simple, so elegant.
As a product designer, Hats off to you guys. Well done.
Brilliant ! And elegant.
This is incredible!
Compliant mechanisms are AWESOME
Wow, I really like this. Congratulations nice design! I am upgrading my robot vacuum cleaner with this solution, and it finally doesn't get stuck on the edges of thicker carpets.
Holy cow this is AWSOME!!
Wow! Congrats on the design
These are going straight onto my rc crawler...
This is amazing, the idea that the linkage would be enough to actuate a grip deployment is genius. I can’t wait to see some sort of rover integrate this!
Holy crap this is actually insanely amazing!
The only downside I can see would be with speeds, but then again I don't imagine this being used in a fast-moving vehicle.
Very cool use of compliant mechanisms!
That's genius, I love it!
So there is still a way to re invent the wheel! 😎👍 Very cool!